Friday, October 07, 2005

Anonymous comment lacks credibility

When reading Dionne’s piece, see previous item, I got the impression that he thought Durbin got his head taken off for all the right reasons. But that wasn’t the point of his article it was just the beginning of his argument. The point was that just as it’s improper to question a prospective appointee about their religious beliefs it is also improper to promote a candidate based on their religious beliefs. Why am I writing this? I got this ‘anonymous’ comment today.

“Non-voting supporters (or detractors) of President Bush may use any evaluative criteria that they like, including religion, in judging the fitness of a Supreme Court nominee. Senator Durbin is expressly prohibited from applying a religious test by Article VI of the United States Constitution. That Mr. Dionne ignores this fact speaks volumes of the casual disregard that he and his ilk have for the text of our nation's charter.”
It seems to me Mr. Dionne was perfectly well aware of Senator Durbin’s limits and was not ignoring them at all. The ‘anonymous’ commenter not only chose to ignore this and take the initial argument out of context but then went on to make an unfounded generalization and a sweeping attack not only on Mr. Dionne but also apparently on like minded individuals and the supposed disregard they all have ‘for the text of our nations charter’. Given the nature of the ‘anonymous’ commenter and the facility with which they ignored the text, took out of context, generalized and attacked I have to wonder what casual or even earnest disregard they may have for other texts, including that of our nation’s charter when the ideas expressed don’t agree with their own.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

'The media' vs. 'We media'
"There's a huge fissure within Big Media. Some get, some don't - and some never will." Mainstream media executives should be doing more than heeding these words from journalist and citizen media proponent Rory ...
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Anonymous said...

I think Anonymous's point was that there is a world of difference between sundry religious conservatives using religion as a yardstick in judging Miers as a nominee and a sitting senator doing so. (In fact, I know that was his point. He's me.) The latter is unconstitutional. Not one of the Miers supporters listed in the article will be voting on her confirmation. Dick Durbin will be.